


Untangling

by MadHatter13



Category: Moana (2016)
Genre: Gen, Male-Female Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-20
Updated: 2016-12-20
Packaged: 2018-09-10 17:35:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8926135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadHatter13/pseuds/MadHatter13
Summary: Sometimes, girls like boys. Sometimes, girls like girls.Sometimes, girls just want to go on epic adventures with their best friend.





	

Moana was angry. This wasn‘t an entirely unusual event – even if she was a competent leader and Wayfinder to her people, that didn‘t mean she didn‘t still clash with them sometimes. And so she had become pretty good at dealing with emotions like frustration, and sadness, and fear, which are generally the root cause of anger. The best way, she knew, was to keep herself busy.

So after she walked out of her fale – she didn‘t storm, future Chiefs did not storm – she searched around for something to do. But as she knew well, everyone on Motunui had a role and knew how to fulfill it. Eventually she found a young boy weaving nets out of coconut fibers on the shore, and browbeat him into finding something else to do, so that she herself could be useful without having to speak to anyone else.

She sat and fumed just beneath the treeline, looking out to sea. The knots came out uneaven and lumpy on her first try, making her scoff, and untie them again. She should have picked some other task that didn‘t require patience, like tilling the fields. Yeah. Hitting the rough volcanic soil repeatedly with something sharp would have done wonders for her mood.

A little further down the beach, out in the surf, she could make out Maui showing off to a bunch of village kids. He was shapeshifting back and forth to match the fish of the lagoon, tricking the kids who keep trying to catch him, always darting away at the last second. As she watched, she saw him shift into a small hammerhead, not big enough to beach himself in the shallow water, but big enough to spook the children. Just as they started shrieking in fear, he changed back, turning the shrieks to laughter. Then, picking one of the boys up and setting him on his shoulder, he ushered the children back to the beach.

Moana found herself smiling while frowning, with the sort of exasperated affection she usually felt around him, but it settled into just a frown as she picked apart the mess of line in her hands. Maui had been around for a few days now – he did that sometimes these days, between her teaching her people to sail and him fighting monsters and the both of them sailing off on quests. He‘d kept well away the first half year or so after they delivered the Heart of Te Fiti, claiming he had much to do restoring the seas to, if not safety, then at least making it less likely that new Wayfinders would be swallowed by some monstrosity from the deeps. It had been two years now, and he‘d had to give up the pretense of ‘Busy, Important Demi-God,’ at least to her if not anyone else. She thinks he may have missed being around people during his thousand years on a desert island – he must have, if anything she doesn’t know how he didn’t just go mad after the first one hundred. Probably choreographing that dance number kept him busy.

The net-in-progress ended up as another tangle, but this one with a bit of misery woven in. That he was here, well, that was a part of the problem. A part of her wished that he wasn’t but she knew she’d miss him.

A magic fish hook landed end-up in the ground next to her and Maui threw himself down with half a coconut in one hand, into a pose of ultimate relaxation which blew sand in her face. As she sneezed, he glanced at the would-have-been net in her hands, looking almost impressed. ‘Wow, kid. You sure have made a mess.’

She huffed, not looking at him, and kept trying to untie the knots she’d made too tight in her anger. He raised an eyebrow at the lack of a funny comeback, and took a sip of the water. ‘Something eating you, kid?’

She made a face, but said, ‘If this is going to be like that joke where you shift into a half a shark or something and bite my leg, I’m never talking to you again.’

‘Oh come on! That one was funny!’ His tattoo, currently hanging out on his right bicep, shook its head. He glared at it. ‘It was!’

‘Yeah, but had marks in the shape of a shark bite on my calf for a week! How do you think I explained that to my mother?’

Maui shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Tell her a very polite monster asked if it was allowed to eat you and you said no?’

‘That’s even worse than the real explanation!’

‘Well, they can’t all be winners. But I’m sure she found yours just super convincing.’

Moana laughed, despite herself, but his words just made her remember just why she was out here in the first place. Her smile fell again, which of course he noticed.

‘Really, kid. If you’ve got something on your mind, at least stop taking it out on the poor net.’

Somewhat out of pettiness, somewhat out of humor for the situation, she waited until he took another drink to say, ‘My parents think I’m going to marry you.’

The ensuing spit-take took out a low-flying bird that was passing by. It hit the ground several feet away, looking mildly concussed. She was pretty sure the spray had created a short-lived rainbow.

Maui sat up, looking deeply hurt. ‘You little… You timed that on purpose, didn’t you?!’

‘Maybe a little,’ she admitted, stifling a laugh.

There was a Silence.

‘Uh…’ He started, hedging around what had to be the most hideously uncomfortable conversations in the history of friends. ‘Your parents have met me, right? Kid. And noticed the considerable age difference?’

‘Yeah, but you know what they say,’ she said, her voice heavy with sarcasm. ‘By the time I’m thirty, you’ll still be a couple thousand years older!’

She could see him sigh in relief that she sounded about as enthusiastic at the prospect as he did. But instead of saying anything, he took the tangle of line from her hands, and started to undo the badly-made knots. Almost involuntarily she began trying to explain. ‘I’ll be Chief after my father and my mother says I will have to have someone to hand the title over to in my own time. And I’m always going exploring with you…’

Maui shrugged again, deftly unraveling the net in his hands. ‘Look, my specialty is smacking monsters and creating natural phenomena. This isn’t exactly in my field of expertise. I’m not sure how to break it to them, but “kickass adventure sidekick” isn’t really the same thing as “good marriage prospects.”’

‘You’re telling me,’ she grumbled. Neither of them mentioned that both of them considered the other to be the sidekick. ‘But some of the girls in my village are already getting married, so they’ve started to get Ideas.’

Maui began re-knotting the net with considerable speed. He’d had a lot of practice. After all, there wasn’t a lot to do on a desert island. ‘That’s easy enough to resolve – just find decent some guy or gal and get hitched and your parents will get off your back about it.’

‘But that’s just it! I don’t have anyone I want to marry! Sure, the kids in the village are nice, but…’ She looked out to sea. ‘The only thing know I do want is to keep going to see what is out there!’ She barely noticed that she had gotten to her feet, she was so busy gesturing wildly at the horizon. ‘I want to find old islands we forgot about, and new ones altogether! And I want to meet anyone who lives on them, see if there are other villages out there! And I want to fight Kakamora and trick monsters, and see amazing things with my people there with me and – and, with my best friend there, too.’

She glanced at him. Remarkably, he didn’t seem to have caught the hint. Then he noticed her staring, and looked behind him as if he expected someone else to be there. Then realization dawned. ‘Oh.’ He said, glancing down at his newest tattoo, which lay just over his heart. He looked as if he didn’t know what else to say. On his chest, Mini-Maui appeared to be equally surprised.

Moana sat down in the sand next to him and nodded. Neither of them quite managed to establish eye contact.

After a pretty long silence, Maui cleared his throat. ‘Well, I think they’ll realize you’ve already surprised them. Everyone thought you couldn’t be Chief and a Wayfinder, and you proved them wrong then, right?’ He gave her a friendly nudge. ‘If anyone can show them a Chief doesn’t need a spouse to do their thing, it’ll be you.’

His words filled her up with warmth and determination, and she could hear grandma Tala’s words as if she’d never left. The village may think I’m crazy, or say that I drift too far. But once you know what you like, well there you are. She could do what she should and be miserable, or do what she needed to do to be, well, her. Moana Wailiki. And right now that did not include getting married.

It did include a canoe, a goal, and a friend, though.

Without a word, Maui handed her the finished net with a smile.

‘Thank you.’

His grin widened. ‘I could say ‘you’re welcome’ but I don’t think a single net measures up to pulling islands from the sea.’

She smiled, and to his surprise pulled him into a hug. ‘No, I mean thank you for listening. And for being my friend.’

She pulled away to see his face scrunched up as if he were trying not to cry. ‘Gah!’ He raged. ‘You’ve got no right to be making me this emotional so early in the morning!’

‘It’s noon.’

‘Whatever!’

She stood up, and brushed the sand off her skirt. ‘I’m going to go talk to them again. See you around later, Maui.’

He didn’t turn around as she left, but nodded. ‘Yeah, see you around.’

Then, as she had almost left, she heard him say, ‘Hey, Moana?’

She turned back. ‘Yes?’

‘Thank you.’

Her grin was as wide as it could possibly be. ‘You’re welcome!’


End file.
